Homeward Bound

It was a brisk spring day. The man striding down the lane toward the village was every inch a countryman from his flat tweed cap to his stout brown brogue walking boots. He wore a tweed sports jacket, thick cavalry twill trousers, a Tattersall check shirt, with a rust coloured waistcoat and matching woollen tie.

This young man with his highly polished ruddy complexion strode into the village and waved his rustic walking stick in salute to the landlord as he passed the village inn. Today he would not stop for his customary pint of Best Draught Bitter he was a man with a mission. He looked around at the mounting block and horse trough outside the inn and then looked up at the neatly thatched cottage roofs. Outside the village post office stood the traditional red telephone box by its side a matching pillar box . It was the sort of village which deserved to be featured on a jigsaw puzzle or a chocolate box.

His walk continued at the cracking pace he had set himself and leaving the village he passed the old orchard and the basket makers cottage. He was barked at by the two dogs who lived in one of the terrace of long front gardened workers cottages.

He started on the incline up towards the Church. Where the lane climbed between the Church and the manor house’s wood you could just make out a single plume of smoke coming from a distant chimney. The birds were singing. It was too early for any summer migrants just the hardier native birds rendering their mating calls in their annual ritual. All this the man rejoiced in as his purposeful stride took him to the brow of the hill. The exercise had made his face gently glow with perspiration.

As he reached the bottom of the far side of the hill and neared the cottage he could see that on this bright spring day with its blue skies there was a single solitary cloud and it was causing a steady downpour to fall on the cottage.